beeswax

I should have said that all that stuff above comes after you've decided which system you're going with. For some the choice is easy; you can't afford to pay for a VLE, so you (generally) go with Moodle. Others have the choice made for them by the LEA or whoever is running your school these days. VLE's can hit the buffers very quickly if you don't keep on top of them. It's very difficult for a techie to say to a teacher, "Look, you promised you'd produce x, y, and z for the VLE. Where is it?" We've all read here of the troubles encountered by techies when getting information off teachers for websites. I don't know, for instance, how VLE's will feature in school inspections. A VLE is an engine which can drive online learning forward. er, I think that's enough for now.

In my case I became interested in VLE's through this forum, and quickly became excited by the possibilities. I set a moodle site up in my own space, just to see how it worked, and managed to blagg some material from the NWGfL to put on the site. (If you visit the link you should have guest access to some of the DiDA and ICT courses). From following the posts here and keeping an eye on BECTA and the DFES I realized that they would soon become a requirement for schools, so I set about planning a strategy for getting staff involved. At the time I figured we'd go with Moodle, but things are moving rapidly now, and it seems as if we'll be using something based on Sharepoint. To me that doesn't matter, as first of all, it's the quality of the material delivered which is paramount. After populating parts of the site, and getting some teachers to use it during lessons as they saw fit, they saw it as a resource to draw on. One member of the ICT staff asked if her pupils could be given a logon just for one lesson to work at their own pace. I forgot to delete that account at the end of the day, and at the end of the month I got a bill from my ISP as I'd gone over my data transfer limit. I checked the logs in Moodle, and sure enough, the pupils were accessing the site from home. Our school has a group called ICTAC (ICT Across the Curriculum) which consists of one teacher from each faculty being responsible for the integration of ICT into and across, their subject. The Head of ICTAC was a teacher in ICT. I began by giving them access to the site and sending them emails, with links, points of interest. If I added anything new, they got an email, whether it was their faculty speciality or not. This process has been going on since January 2006. A new web/VLE server was purchased before last Christmas, and I've slowly been bulding a new Moodle site (you can't access it outside school yet) and transferring work, as well as being on the lookout for new stuff. What I did, I did on the hoof, but I've tried to take time out to analyse what worked, such as using the ICTAC staff, what could be done better, and how I could manage the massive change involved in getting a full blown VLE off the ground. Some of the points apply to VLE's managed in house, and those remotely hosted. Others only to in house. I've no experience of having a VLE remotely hosted so I can't speak for how you'd manage change in that situation. Staff need to have a point of contact they can turn to when problems arise. Some need to have their hand held all the way through. A VLE isn't the electronic equivalent of a lesson handout. You know, read this short passage and then answer the 10 questions. That's just a waste of everyone's time and effort. You're not going to get a VLE off the ground in a couple of months. It's a long term project. With normal school resources, you're talking a minimum of a year to 18 months before people get used to it. Managing a VLE properly will also become a full time job, possibly running in tandem with managing the school website. There are members on this forum, who manage to do both, as well as being techies. Any school with any pretence of wanting a full blown VLE is going to have to employ somebody full time. Think about the percentage of pupils who don't have computers at home. They're certainly at a disadvantage. How will you cater for them? After school clubs and possibly providing extra computers in libraries. Get to know you're chain of command, the weak links. Tell them, "If you've got a problem, come to me." Get staff to plan lessons as if they were going to deliver them electronically. Most of them have school laptops on which they draw up these plans anyway. It's not always the young staff who take to VLE's readily, but make allowances. Plan staff time out of lessons to attend instruction on managing their work space online. Develop central (online) areas where staff can collaborate on ideas. Provide them with perks, the ability to book rooms online, though not necessarily part of a VLE, is another method of directing thinking into an online menatlity. Always show them the benefits. I've rambled a bit as I'm writing this off the cuff. I hope I don't give the impression I'm obssesive.

no problems from here. just opened "Enterprise Education involves the development of" without any problems.

you english are so quaint!

sorry to read that Jake. You just feel so helpless in those situations. I hope it's all over and done with quickly.

Ah, but the first language for almost half Americans is now Spanish. Have you got any sources for that? I find that quite interesting! Ke ? Well the CIA factbook proved me wrong. I was quoting a commentator during the last presidential election who was discussing the demographics of the USA in a tv debate, and that's obviously what I thought I heard. There are some things I heard, there are some things I think I heard. Then there are some unheard things I know and some ...well, you know how the rest of it goes. My apologies for a misleading quote. As there are some some US memebers of Edugeek out there perhaps they can give us some more up to date figures?

That can't be right, the population of US is approx 300Million, + uk 60Million + autralia, canada etc Ah, but the first language for almost half Americans is now Spanish.

Glow As far as I can recall, and I'm happy to be corrected on this, the Scottish education secretary wanted a nationwide digital network setting up. They put it out to tender and RM came up with the best solution, which from what I've read, is a bespoke version of Kaleidos. Everyone seems happy with the solution. Why can't we have that sort of joined up thinking south of the border?

I caught this as a throwaway line on the radio today, so as a wind down I thought it would work visually. with apologies to the Dummies people.

I don't use any of their equipment. I think it's time to look for another provider. I'm going to have to trawl through an awful lot of emails to see who to inform of changes though. I should imagine that inertia is what keeps half the customers from not moving.

service failed again last night. doesn't help when you're trying to do an online course.

I use a netgear router, all cable, because for some reason when we had wireless, the DECT phones we have at home caused the signal to drop off when they rang. most inconvenient. orange have told me that I should re install my tcp/ip.

@GrumbleDook "The web parts were interesting too ... Moodle web parts, SIMS web parts ... but not even a screen shot yet of CMIS web parts." anyone know if there's a SIMS Web Part for Sharepoint 2007?

just tried it in school and it works (after a warning message).

same prob as SimpleSi here

anyone with orange as an isp? did your connection drop out last night (11/03/07)? It hasn't happened a lot, but it's just a pain when you're trying to do some work.

While I was on the Becta site earlier came across this, it may prove useful.

I visited a school (St. Anthony's RC College in Urmston) where the IT suites have tables almost that shape, though the curves are a little more gentle. That's how the tables were designed. I can't tell you how much they cost though.

reading the article it mentions having the school badge on the laptop's cloth bag. Our CLC tried an experiment with the laser tool a month or so back. They scanned in the school crest to a comnputer, set up the lid of a defunct laptop in the laser burner and burnt/engraved the crest into the lid. Not a bad idea.

John Naughton in the Observer again.

I think that about covers it. I've tried to post this once in another forum, but it's not showing.

I think that about covers it.

Had a room full of pupils doing the 2007 Familiarisation Test the other day, and they came up with the old Invalid..etc problem again. RM confirmed to me that I would once again have to run the batch file on every single machine again. Has anyone encountered this problem? I thought they were supposed to be sorting this out.

Have to agree with john, that's exactly what we've done.

53. Looks pretty stark written down like that